


ask me, I won't say no

by safflowerseason



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 11:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15728685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safflowerseason/pseuds/safflowerseason
Summary: Amy has the baby. She and Dan fight and then make up over Politico headlines.





	ask me, I won't say no

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quick one-shot I just sort of threw up recently, fluffier than Veep’s usual tone, but I thought I might post it anyway as we wait for spring 2019. 
> 
> If we don’t get a shot of Reid Scott in a three thousand dollar suit with a baby carrier strapped to his chest, the entire pregnancy storyline will have been for nothing.

* * *

 

The hospital room is dim and mercifully empty, rusty sunset light filtering in through the blinds. Everyone’s gone: the nurses, the doctor, the beeping machines. Selina’s wandered off with Gary, tired of a room where nobody was primarily focused on her. Ben and Kent are somewhere in the depths of the hospital, plotting. Richard had even been present, beaming and reciting nursing advice in an impossibly cheerful tone until Dan had snapped at him to get the fuck out before he strangled him with a stethoscope.

Amy’s lying limp on the hospital bed in blue pajamas, propped up against five pillows, feeling like someone has literally split her entire body open ( _oh wait_ ), and trying to make sense this new world she’s found herself in. Dan’s at the end of the bed, clutching a tiny bundle of blankets, staring down into them. He’s been in that position for the better part of an hour. They haven’t actually spoken since the baby…emerged.

The nurse had handed her the tiny red and wrinkled thing, seconds after the moment of delivery. Amy, through the fog of pain and anger and exhaustion, felt something possessive and powerful sweep through her so suddenly, terrible in its ferocity. _Mine,_ she thought. _This is mine._

Dan hung over the side of the delivery bed with his mouth open, completely dumbstruck. The baby stirred; her eyes were enormous and blue in her tiny face. She looked right up at her parents ( _her parents_ ) and Dan said “Fuck.”

Amy sob-laughed, and the baby started to wail. 

They named her Cassie. Amy got a few hazy, blurry moments holding her brand-new daughter to her chest as it— _she_ —cried, while Dan dug his fingers into Amy’s shoulder and stared. Then tiny little Cassie got whisked away to get cleaned up more thoroughly, and Amy had been struck by this profound fear that she would get lost, that they might bring back the wrong baby, that something terrible would happen. That terror hasn’t abated; it’s just been compressed into a permanent little space somewhere deep in her chest.

While they were replacing Amy’s sheets and exchanging her now-disgusting hospital gown for pajamas, one of the nurses asked Dan if he wanted to hold his daughter, and Dan looked pretty panicked but before he could say yes or no the nurse basically thrust Cassie into in his arms. Then there had been a weird moment where they had looked at each other over the baby’s head and Dan opened his mouth, but then _everyone_ had come swarming in, chattering and exclaiming (and in Gary’s case, crying hysterically) and he had just clammed up.

And now they’re alone, the way they’re going to be alone for the rest of their lives—with a child between them.

They had barely talked about the baby to each other. When Amy told him she was pregnant, Dan had insisted that he wasn’t going to fuck off, and she replied that she absolutely did not in the least believe him, and that was basically the last conversation they had about their feelings for the next seven months, which had suited Amy just fine. 

They talked about other things instead. They talked about daycare. They talked about money. They even talked about living arrangements, or, more specifically, Dan invaded Amy’s apartment in month seven with plans to convert her office into the baby's rom. They ordered a crib, clothes, toys, picked the wallpaper for the baby’s room, considered whether white was too impractical for curtains 

( _Correction:_ Amy and Dan did literally none of those things. They outsourced the shopping to Amy’s mother and the interior decoration to Gary). 

They did all the things you’re supposed to do for a baby, except talk about what it meant to have one together.

But now they’re here, and Dan’s sitting there, at the other end of the bed with his arms full of the proof how _permanent_ this whole parenthood thing was going to be. The space between them seems as impassable as ever; she doesn’t know how to talk to Dan-the-dad. 

Finally, Dan looks up at her. His freckles are more visible than usual and his hair is kind of standing on end. There are dark circles under his eyes and he needs to shave. He looks rumpled and tired and uncertain, and Amy just, like, fatally loves him in that one second (her heart is just the stupidest heart).  

He immediately ruins the moment. “Holy _shit_ , Ames.”

“Don’t swear.” Amy corrects automatically, and is immediately struck by the absolute fucking absurdity of that statement. 

“ _Jesus,_ Amy.” He’s got that crazed look that he always has whenever Selina’s gotten into some political fuck-up they can’t immediately fix. “What did we _do_?”

“I don’t know what you’re panicking about, six months ago you said everything was going to be fine, and it wasn’t even going to be that hard.” 

“Well I fucking _lied,_ didn’t I?! Oh my god, this is an _infant_. We made her and now we have to, like, actually raise her and shit. In the middle of a campaign. _Near_ Selina Meyer. Ben doesn’t even _know_ his kids. How in the sweet ever-loving fuck are we going to do this?!”

Amy’s been trying to avoid thinking about it. Getting the baby out had been fucking impossible. Taking it—her—home and actually dealing with her in the middle of the permanent shit-show of chaos that was Team Meyer was unthinkable. Thank God she’s always found Dan’s panic soothing. 

“Wow, do I need to call the nurse for some smelling salts? We take her home, dummy, and we go from there. What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

Dan glares at her, the very specific glare he gets when he finds her particularly frustrating, like he just can’t believe she’s not indulging his panic. From his expression you’d never know that Amy had literally just pushed his child out of her own body. “What is wrong with _you_?! Why didn’t you want to talk about this more?! We could have this shit figured out by now!”

“I’m sorry, did you _want_ a lot of long talks about what it means to be a _family?_ ” The word feels awkward on her tongue. 

“ _No._ ” Dan looks witheringly at her. “You know what I mean.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” she exclaims wildly. “There’s no more time for talking, she’s here!”

"Yeah, and I’m _here,_ Amy, I’m still here, so will you stop looking at me like I’m going to disappear at any second? It’s fucking _old_ by now.”

“God, you _blindingly_ oblivious dick-headed narcissist, everything is _always_ about you, why the hell would I want to talk about anything real with you, ever?” She really wants to throw something at him but he’s holding the baby. Goddamnit. 

“Look Amy," Dan says in a more sanctimonious, faux-conciliatory tone that sends very un-motherly rage through her veins, "I don’t want to fight about how I slept with your sister two fucking years ago while I’m holding our brand-new kid, but I fucking will, if that’s what it takes.” 

“You think it’s just Sophie?! I _wish_ it were just Sophie. It’s…god, in what universe could I think this would ever be enough for you? I _know—_ I know what you are, and this is—this doesn’t fit, this isn’t you _—“_

Dan’s eyes go wide and she can practically hear his brain whirring in response but Amy’s done. Instead she holds out her hands and ignores the crack in her voice as she demands, “Now give her to me. Before you start hyperventilating.” 

For a moment Dan looks like he wants to keep arguing, but then he moves toward her and carefully, oh-so-carefully, so carefully that Amy swallows the urge to make fun of him, transfers Cassie to her arms. She’s miraculously still sleeping. It’s probably a good sign. 

Amy takes a deep breath to calm herself, tries to dispel Dan from her mind and…surprisingly, it’s not hard. Cassie, the soft weight of her, the rhythm of her breath, the way she fits against Amy’s chest, easily fills up all the mental space she has, pushing out Dan, pushing out their argument, pushing out Selina’s campaign even. The world shrinks to just them, her and her daughter. There’s just the slope of her little nose, the soft curves of her cheeks, her tiny tiny fingers. God. Amy suddenly blinks back tears (fucking hormones). This is her daughter. She’s a mother now.

Amy had a few (…okay, many) sleepless nights, running her hand over her slowly expanding belly, worrying that she would be as indifferent as Selina, that she would finally have a baby and then feel nothing, or even worse, feel that it was the wrong choice. That had been her worst fear, ultimately, more than she feared losing her job or the potential media storm or whatever Dan was planning.

(Usually Dan would roll over, bury his face in her hair and mumble “Ugh, your _thinking_ woke me up, go to sleep, Ames.” Weirdly, it worked.)

After a while, the mattress dips slightly next to her. Dan’s gingerly sat down, and the bed is so small his side presses into hers, but Amy doesn’t move. Partly because she doesn’t want to dislodge the baby in any way and also because even though she hates him, he feels really good against her, broad and warm. She can feel his heartbeat.

“She looks like us.” Dan finally says, and there’s something pleased in his voice. He reaches out and runs the tip of his finger down Cassie’s cheek. She stirs against Amy, a flutter of black eyelashes and a flash of blue.

“Duh,” Amy replies sarcastically, but she doesn’t say it very loudly. Cassie’s mostly wrinkled and pink all over, and except for the eyes and the tuft of black hair she doesn’t really resemble either of them yet. If she squints, she’d guess that Cassie got her nose. It _is_ kind of eerie, seeing a part of her own face mirrored back at her.

Dan clears his throat. “I know this goes without saying, but she’s so fucking small.”

“They grow fast, at the beginning.” 

“Thank fuck.”

“She could still be small, though.” Amy amends. “But hopefully not as small as me.”

“I don’t mind that you’re small.”

“Of course _you_ don’t.” 

It doesn’t feel wrong. It…feels the opposite of wrong, to sit here in the quiet, with Dan’s chest against her back and a baby ( _their_ baby) in her arms. 

“Hey, I got you something.” Dan volunteers after a while.

“…What? That would mean you bought something for a woman you had sex with, which we both know you don’t do.”

“Well I made a fucking exception in this case, Ames.”

Suddenly the room explodes with light, thousands of diamonds streaming over the walls and the ceiling, dotting the bedspread, dancing in the air, rainbow-inflected and glittering and transforming the room into a dazzling white space. Amy actually lets out a little gasp—maybe the baby has broken her brain, maybe she’s hallucinating.

Dan angles the ring in his hand so it’s not catching the light from the window anymore; the room instantly goes back to normal, nondescript, ugly, tinted orange from the dusk outside, except: caught between his fingers, a bright single diamond. 

“What the _fuck_ is that?” Amy demands, even though she already knows. (The ring is gorgeous, obviously, and she immediately wants to put it on, but there are more pressing matters at hand). 

“…I think that’s pretty obvious.”

“It’s not an appropriate baby toy,” she snaps, desperately clinging to some sense of reality (and it's strange, how quickly Cassie has become the most real thing in the universe).

“Good thing it’s not for Cassie, then,” he repeats, and something about hearing that name from his mouth causes this throb of longing right in her gut ( _it’s the baby hormones_ , she tells herself furiously).

“Seriously, when the fuck did you get that?”

Dan shrugs. “I don’t know. A while ago.”

“A _while_ ago?”

“Yep.” He’s smirking now, and it's such a typical Dan expression that if she weren’t holding their daughter she’d punch him right in his stupid, infuriating face.

“You walked into a jewelry store _a while ago_ and bought that ring, and nobody saw you and you didn’t tell anyone, not even the _Washington Post_?”

“Uh…” He makes a face, like he’s thinking. “Nope.”

And, well…there’s just not anything she can think of to say. Everything is changing too fast, a baby she’s known for an hour and an entire campaign waiting just outside the door and Dan, still here, still here. 

Dan says, “Amy,” in a much lower tone, and when she finally meets his gaze he just _looks_ at her. There’s something open, in his face, something unfamiliar in its sincerity.

“It’s, uh, not for now.” he adds. “I just wanted you to know…that I have it. For when you want it. If you want it.” 

Much to her surprise, Dan had stayed in the delivery room the entire time: _look at me_ , _look at me, focus on my face for fuck’s sake, we still have the entire primary election to get through, think of the damn primary, don’t think about how it hurts._

Amy hadn’t even thought of anyone else. She hadn’t _wanted_ anyone else. 

“Dan,” she whispers, and she can’t really move because her arms are full of their daughter, but she turns her cheek and presses her face into his chest anyway. His hand comes up against her back, warm and solid. 

They sit like that for a while, until Cassie starts to kind of wriggle in her bundle and both her parents immediately look down at her. Her eyes are open again, and she’s making these little fussy mewling noises. Without even thinking, entirely reflexively, Amy pulls her up against her shoulder, making a soft cooing sound as she strokes her back. It feels strange...but also really right. Dan watches with the same wide-eyed expression he had when Amy held her the first time.

When the baby’s quiet again, Amy knows what she has to say next.

“Dan?”

“Yeah?”

“...Where's my phone?”

There’s a second where Dan looks at her as though he’s completely forgotten what their actual jobs are. Then he replies, slowly, “You mean you don’t have your second phone?”

“…What?” 

“It’s not where you usually keep it?”

It takes her a second to realize what he’s doing, but then something inside her flares into life. 

“No, I had something else stuck in there until very recently.” she retorts, gesturing down at the sleeping baby in her arms. They’re both kind of smirking at each other and Dan’s expression is somehow smug and playful and awed all the same time. Amy feels weightless, feels lighter than she has in months, in a way that has nothing to do with expelling a six-and-a-half pound baby girl out of her vaginal canal. 

“I have it.” he says. He looks like maybe he wants to ask just what she’ll do to get her phone back, but then his eyes flick back down to Cassie and he seems to remember that’s not exactly a workable play at the moment. “…you want it? Now?”

“Well _obviously,_ I need to know what’s happened in the last twenty four hours. I’m still the campaign manager.”

“Oh my god, I _get_ it.” Dan rolls his eyes. “Don’t you need, like, sleep, or something? We’ve been here forever. In case you didn’t notice, Cassie took nineteen hours to find her way out of you.” 

“ _Dan.”_

“Ugh, _fine,_ calm the fuck down, I’ll check my phone, I’ll read you the _Politico_ headlines.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and clears his throat ostentatiously. “Come here.” he says, even though Amy’s already right there, and tightens his arm around her. Amy re-settles against him, tucking her cheek against his chest.

“Don’t skip anything.” she demands.

“Bossy.” Dan smirks, and starts skimming down his phone. “Okay, Doyle’s planning a Latin American tour, to work on improving relations with our southern neighbors blah blah blah…”

“Boring.” she yawns. Dan’s shirt is wrinkled and soft and smells like him. She glances down at Cassie, rearranges the folds of her blankets.

“They got the votes for the pharmaceutical—wait, why are you smiling?”

“Nothing…I just can’t believe this is her first bedtime story.” 

“I can.” Dan says, like he wasn’t panicking about this less than twenty minutes ago. “She’s going to be fucking brilliant at this.”

“Gross.” His delusional plans for his new political dynasty or whatever the fuck can wait.

“Oh my god, get this, Jonah yelled at a bus driver in New Hampshire, and now all the transportation unions are boycotting his campaign.” 

“Cassie,” Amy says, addressing her daughter out loud for the first time. “We are going to tell you all about a 60-foot wadzilla alien mutant jizzstain named Jonah, on his way to terrorize the District of Columbia.” 

Dan laughs out loud and then _finally_ he kisses her, his mouth warm and open and demanding, and yet something about it is almost gentle. Amy can’t really move, what with the baby, but she tries to pour as much meaning as she can back into it. 

The kiss stops being gentle—she and Dan are never gentle with each other for very long—and shifts into something fierce, Dan’s mouth working against hers possessively. He’s kissing her like he’s trying to convince her of something.

The door opens. “Hey, you guys—aww, you look happy—Amy, your parents are downstairs.”

“Get _the fuck_ out, Gary.” Dan snaps, tearing his mouth from Amy’s. “Visiting hours are _over.”_

"Dan, I really don’t think that language is appropriate around little babies.” 

“ _Out.”_ Amy orders. “And don’t you fucking dare give them this room number.”

Gary retreats, looking grievously offended. Amy groans into Dan’s shoulder, and his chuckle feathers her hair. “Fuck, my parents. Quick, read me the Doyle story, and I’ll fall asleep before they find us.”

“Got it. Actually, though, we should talk about getting Selina out on her own foreign policy tour, show her off doing something she enjoys…or you know, doesn’t actively hate, at least. ”

“Yeah,” agrees Amy, and for the first time in months, everything feels right, everything feels real. “Yeah, we should.”

*

In the morning she can’t remember how to nurse Cassie correctly and Dan gets a speck of baby spit-up on his new suit and promptly throws a fit because the hospital doesn't dry-clean. Montez hits Selina for a comment she made about illegal immigration and Ben and Kent _already_ want to start strategizing for a foreign policy tour and none of it seems manageable. But Dan insists on staying the night even when everyone else is heading back to Iowa, and the baby’s next to them, so close that Amy can reach out and touch her whenever she needs to. It still feels real.

*


End file.
